(Finance) – In 2022, the gender employment gap in the’European Union it was on average 10.7 percentage points (pp), 0.2 pp less than in 2021. Eurostat communicates this, recalling that the gender employment gap is defined as the difference between the employment rates of men and women aged between between 20 and 64 years.
The EU statistical office explains that a variety of reasons cause disparity gender issues in employment, such as women’s unpaid care responsibilities, discrimination in hiring and the shortage of women in leadership. Furthermore, factors such as inadequate child care, tax disincentives and occupational segregation help perpetuate the gender employment gap.
There were only two EU regions, among those classified at level 2 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 2), which recorded a higher female employment rate in 2022: the Capital Region of Lithuania (Sostines regionalas) and the Finland southern (Etela-Suomi). In the region of Northern and Eastern Finland (Pohjois-ja Ita-Suomi), no differences in employment rates were found between men and women. In all other EU regions the gender gap persists, with higher employment rates for men.
In 2019, the EU set thegoal of halving the gap of gender by 2030. One in five EU regions has already reached the target set at 5.8 pp. These regions are concentrated in France (14 regions), Germany (7 regions), Finland (all 5 regions), Sweden and Portugal (both 4 regions), Lithuania (both regions), as well as Latvia and Estonia (1 country region).
There were 20 regions where the gender employment gap was at least 20 percentage points in 2022. Half of these were in Greece, while the rest were concentrated in Italy (7 regions) and Romania (3 regions).
Gender employment gaps higher were recorded in the central Greek region (Sterea Elláda, 31.4 pp) and in the southern Italian region of Puglia (30.7 pp).